


Giants

by wanda von dunayev (wandavon)



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Government, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Manipulation, Sexual Tension, Strap-Ons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29343801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandavon/pseuds/wanda%20von%20dunayev
Summary: The unacceptable delays to Maven's latest construction project cannot continue.
Relationships: Maven Black-Briar/Laila Law-Giver
Comments: 13
Kudos: 11
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Giants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jibber_jabber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibber_jabber/gifts).



> Thank you so much to [borichu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/borichu/pseuds/borichu) for the last-minute beta! A true superhero.

Maven has always fancied Laila Law-Giver a useful idiot, but even idiots can provide an object lesson now and then.

They sit side by side in a booth at the Guest House Bar, their knees and elbows not touching but so close the fabric of their blazers almost catches.

It’s Tuesday night and the place is deserted. Maven sits with her back to the wall to command a strategic view of the room beyond and the street beyond that. Before their meeting—for drinks, she said in the text to Laila—she ordered the floodlights turned all the way up so she’d have a better view of oncoming foot-traffic and the sidewalk. Her security detail is the best that money can buy, and she owns this hotel, but she trusts no one more than herself.

After Mercer Frey got himself gunned down in his nightclub two months back she’s been more cautious. That’s for the best. She has no use for a business partner who draws such explosive violence down upon himself. Object lessons.

“It’s always so nice to get a chance to talk outside the office,” Laila says.

“I quite agree. It’s been too long.”

“It’s unfortunate that the opposition has been playing so dirty. All those rumours about our relationship.”

 _And well they might._ Maven smiles, encouraging. The wool of her tailored pants contrasts with her lace underwear, which contrasts with the cold, blunt pressure of her strap-on against her inner thigh. It reminds her of the smooth slide of her 9mm pistol. Her briefcase sits at her ankles and the gun sits inside it, safety on, loaded.

Laila toys with her drink, sneaking glances at Maven. It’s hard to tell if she’s nervous or excited, since both are written alike on Laila’s face. Maybe because so often they’re entwined when she and Maven are together.

“This new haircut suits you,” Maven says. She brushes a lock behind Laila’s ear, letting her fingers linger at the edge of her jaw. As if reading a cue, Laila shivers.

It’s about power, not pleasure, as most things in Maven’s life are: the private jet, the personal chef, the Hammerfell silk blouses. She’s chosen them to make a statement. But she doesn’t disdain pleasure; she’s not one of those flagellant priests of Talos, beating themselves bloody through the streets of Whiterun and wailing about punishment. Life is brute fact, neither pleasure nor suffering, just meat above meat.

And Laila is a striking woman with her blazing hair and blue eyes, her long legs, heavy breasts and slim hips. Riften’s Member of Parliament, hiding the body of an aging underwear model under pantsuits and stack-heeled shoes—but she can’t hide how money and name and looks have let her coast upwards, rising into a position of leadership for which she is wholly ill-equipped.

The strap-on’s weight, its heft between Maven’s legs as insistent and intimate as the weight of a real cock, is impossible to ignore. It tightens Maven’s nipples, makes heat build in her belly. She has to force herself to sit still.

Laila watches her, her eyes darting to Maven’s lips as Maven sips her drink.

Maven hails the waiter when he passes and orders them another round. Then she says, “I need to talk to you about the environmental assessments we’re conducting in Fallowstone.”

Laila drains her own drink until ice rattles in the glass. “What about them?”

“The delays are getting expensive. Every day we don’t break ground is costing me money. Money that’s difficult to spare in this economy.”

The Law-Givers claim they can trace their descent to Mabjaarn Flame-Hair. That’s always struck Maven as unlikely—surely the line of conquerors would not fall so far—but Laila’s got the colouring, no question. It betrays her at every moment. It betrays her again, now, when she blushes scarlet.

“They need a little more time to finish up some of the studies,” Laila says. “It’s just… a sensitive area. The mammoths.”

Maven makes a noncommittal noise and takes another sip of her own drink, a colorful concoction like something a college girl would order. Virgin, of course. She never drinks while doing business. Leave it to others to fall down and compromise themselves.

Laila, to her credit, doesn’t get drunk when they work together, either. It’s one of the few things Maven respects about her, though even Laila’s restraint is prompted more by some ascetic impulse than self-preservation. And it’s balanced by so many other weaknesses.

The strap-on nudges her leg. She wants to grab Laila by the throat, hike that sensible wool skirt up, shred her stockings and take her here, at the bar, in front of the wall-to-ceiling windows and anyone walking by. Laila’s long, freckled legs propped on the table, Maven between them. The proof that Maven owns her in every meaningful sense of the word.

“Those mammoths,” Maven says, a shade harsher than usual. “One thinks they should start paying taxes, with how much of the courts’ time they occupy.”

“I understand, Maven, really. But these assessments have a broad base of popular support.”

Do they? If this were happening in Eastmarch, Ulfric would have batted the entire sideshow of an assessment aside and they’d be halfway to completing the fucking project. But because Laila is a fool with no sense of reality, she won’t deal with unnecessary red tape. She refuses to engage with the world as it really is.

Blindness, however, can be a blessing.

Maven slides a little closer, looking around as if to make sure they’re not being overheard, though her boys will keep the place very, very clear of eavesdroppers. When she leans in to whisper in Laila’s ear, Laila crosses her legs and leans towards Maven, too.

“I’ve heard that the Minister of Economic Development is pushing to have it struck down,” Maven whispers. Laila rocks back, shocked, as if anything happens that Maven doesn’t know about. “And the Member of Parliament from Markarth. All those troublesome reindeer, frolicking on prime mining land.”

“Maven, please, not here.” Laila lifts a hand as if to silence her, then thinks better of it. Instead her fingers dance over the tabletop, picking at nonexistent cracks. “Those are executive deliberations. That’s—that’s Cabinet confidential information.”

Her voice is halting, like a girl’s. She _is_ a girl. And Ulfric’s old boys’ club has never followed the rules, never cared, and never had any compunctions about using Black-Briar cash when necessary. Just as Maven has never had any compunctions about using them.

Maven takes Laila’s hand where it lies on the table. Touching Laila’s skin is like holding porcelain. Maven’s nails scrape her. How many welts has she raised over the years? How many red-purple teeth-marks, only just not drawing blood?

She’s conscious of the freshness of her manicure, done at the manor today as she read one of Asgeir’s briefings and considered what dildo to wear. Her Bosmer servant painted Maven’s nails a perfect, unobjectionable beige-pink, filed short as befits a businesswoman. Practical, too.

Carefully, as if afraid of getting caught, Maven lays Laila’s hand on her thigh, palm warm and snug against the strap-on’s solid curve. Just silicone, but she swears that Laila’s touch rocks through her, a lash of electricity. Almost as good as Laila touching real flesh. She allows herself one shift of her hips against the seat.

Laila’s nostrils flare. She glances out at the abandoned bar, and Maven does the same. Outside snow is falling in fat flakes that vanish as soon as they hit the pavement.

“I have a room upstairs,” Maven says. “Don’t worry about the roads. We have no end of time.”

Laila’s fingers tremble on Maven’s leg, a twitch and a stroke. Already getting wet, no doubt; warring with herself, as always, over her desire and her suspicion. Maven no longer cares about that flash of uncertainty. It is never quite substantial enough to take shape, spurs no revelations, changes nothing. Gone faster than freezing rain.

“I can’t show you favouritism.” Laila rubs at her collarbone, a self-soothing, betraying gesture. “You know that.”

“Have I ever asked you for favouritism?” Maven asks for nothing. She woos, or she takes.

Her gaze is so soft, Laila. Like a child’s, and pathetic on a woman of forty-six. “No, but letting the public have a say in development projects is what our democratic process is for. What parliament is for.”

“And what are you for? You are our elected official. We have entrusted you with the responsibility of speaking on our behalf. That’s all I want, Laila. My MP’s advocacy.”

She strokes Laila’s knee, maintaining eye-contact all the while. The caress, and her gaze, is a promise. 

“Gods.” Laila’s pupils flare, and when she takes a sip of her drink, the liquid sloshes in the glass.

Women are as stupid as men when it comes to sex. That’s Laila Law-Giver’s lesson.

Their arms are crossed over one another, like girls playing a schoolyard game. Maven keeps her voice low, as if they were speaking in bed with limbs still tangled after the act, but she injects an earnest note into the words as well. “Laila, it’s very important that we ensure this development is approved. The Rift could benefit immeasurably from my work. I want our citizens to reap the benefits!”

“But the people love mammoths. Tabling that motion would be politically—” Laila’s voice quivers, and she breaks off when Maven inches her hand higher. Beneath the nylon Laila’s skin is firm but supple, her muscles just starting to soften from honed rigidity into something more yielding. The heat between her legs is wet and promising already.

“Fuck the mammoths.”

“And giant rights—”

“Fuck the giants.” _The only giant you need concern yourself with is right here._ “Whiterun has more mammoth territory per kilometer than anywhere else in Tamriel.” She’s fabricated that factoid, has no idea if it’s true, but Laila isn’t likely to check and it doesn’t matter. “Did that stop Balgruuf when he was Minister of Agriculture under Torygg’s government?”

“And then Balgruuf _lost_ the next election.”

Oh, what a shame that would be, Laila deposed. Whoever would replace her? “I don’t think that was related to mammoths. I think that was his choice to become an Independent candidate. A damning choice.”

“Granted.” The word is a croak. Laila’s drink sits on the table in a puddle of condensation, forgotten.

Maven takes a sip from it, smiling at Laila over the rim. “All I’m asking, Laila, is for you to consider the matter. Ulfric would love a chance to dispute an Imperial bill. You’d be doing the Rift and your party a favour.”

“I’ll think it over.” The bob in Laila’s throat as she swallows speaks, eloquently, of Maven’s victory. She’ll think of nothing; nothing but Maven.

“Oh, this tedious drivel. That’s not why I asked you to come.” Maven strokes a line under Laila’s jaw, Laila’s pulse hammering against her fingertips. Everything she does compromises her. Maven shifts, and her strap-on seems to sizzle against her overheated skin. Her underwear clings to her, slick against her slacks. “Finish your drink. I have more business to discuss upstairs.”


End file.
